


Four Times Daniel Almost Died and One Time He Did...You Know

by babs



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, Gen, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:01:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25182949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babs/pseuds/babs
Summary: Exactly what the title says. And don't let the whole death thing scare you.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 22





	Four Times Daniel Almost Died and One Time He Did...You Know

Time the first

He jumped in front of the weapon pointed at the Speaker for the Nerolan when he saw the glint of metal. The strange projectile burned as it entered just above his right nipple. He remembered the the searing pain and Jack swearing and a strange feeling of peace and finality. Then he woke up in a bed in a Nerolan hospital. Sam cried when he said her name and Teal'c clasped his hand tightly. Jack, however, was silent and would never speak of the incident again.

Time the second

The bite of the Zyer wasn't painful. He didn't even know he'd been bitten until they came home through the Gate and he was having his post mission exam. Janet frowned and asked him what the red raised mark was. He shrugged and went to the debriefing where his whole body locked up and he couldn't draw in breath. He didn't remember anything after that—only that Janet looked relieved when he smiled at her after receiving the antivenin that Sam and Teal'c retrieved from their new allies. 

Time the third

He argued that Jack couldn't hold it against him and claim Daniel had died again when it had been a clone. "Doesn't matter," Jack said. "He 'was' you." The haunted look didn't leave Jack's eyes for weeks.

Time the fourth

They were on a planet that had no name and Daniel was studying the temple that was built by the ocean when a wave swept him off the rocks. He held his breath as long as he could while he struggled against the waves but he was pulled under. The water was cold—and much as he wanted to keep fighting, there came a time when he surrendered to the power of the sea. Someone or someones were there—he heard their singing. They took him in their arms and swam with him to the shore where Cameron Mitchell found him coughing up water and bile. No one believed him when he said he'd been rescued by mer-people and it was all chalked up to his harrowing near death experience. But there were times late at night that he would remember the song he'd heard and the way their hair curled around his arms and would weep.

Finis

He sat alone in Cassie's living room in Colorado Springs. It had been months since he'd been to her house. The last time had been at her grand-daughter Samantha's christening last year. He could hear her puttering around in the kitchen making them hot chocolate.

Daniel looked around the familiar house—the one that Jack had once owned. Cassie and Mike had made it their own—pictures of their family were on the walls while pictures of Janet and SG-1 graced the mantel over the fireplace. He smiled as he looked at them—God, it was hard to remember he'd ever been that young. 

Cassie came back, sat down, and handed him his cup. He took a sip and gave an appreciative sigh.

"Are you ready for tomorrow?" Cassie asked. She leaned forward, her gaze intent.

"I don't know that I ever thought I'd be ready for this day," Daniel said. He put the cup down and ran his hand over the book on the table next to him. "I know making the Stargate public is the right decision. I just don't know if it's the right decision for me."

Cassie picked up the book. "A History of the Stargate Program by Daniel Jackson, PhD." She grinned. "You're going to be famous, you know."

Daniel shook his head. "It wasn't me alone, and I hope no one ever says it was."

"It is the right time," Cassie told him and put down the book. She looked over towards the mantel. "The others would be proud, I think." She blinked back a few tears.

"Your mom would be so proud," Daniel told her. "Leader of the SGC as it's taken into a new era."

"I like to think so," Cassie said and they finished their chocolate in silence. She gathered the cups.

"Well, I'd better get to bed," she said. "It's going to be a crazy day tomorrow." She paused. "You?"

"I just want to sit here a little longer," Daniel told her. She kissed his head and then went to the mantel and brought back the framed photos and handed them to him. "See you in the morning. I love you, Uncle Daniel."

"I love you too, Cassie or should I be saying Doctor Cassandra Fraiser-Jacobs?" 

She laughed. "I'll always be Cassie to you and you know it."

The house soon fell silent and Daniel looked at the photos in his lap. So young, he thought.

Teal'c had his arm over Cassie's shoulders as she smiled widely and held up her doctorate. Forty five years. It had been forty five years since Teal'c had been assassinated by a fellow Jaffa. He'd never seen the birth of his second grandchild who was born two days after the ceremony to honor her grandfather. Daniel remembered standing as honor guard to the funeral pyre for his friend and how he and Jack and Sam had cried and not cared who saw.

He ran his fingers over Jack's picture—over that cocky grin Jack had. Gone too soon—just like Teal'c. Jack had been driving home less than a month after they'd lost Teal'c—to the house Daniel sat in now—when a drunk driver ran a red light. The drunk driver walked away—Jack was permanently paralyzed. For a time Daniel hoped, believed that somehow there would some miracle the SGC could provide. False hope, he knew but there were some nights it was the only way he could get to sleep. There was no magic pill or machine that could change what had happened. Sam threw herself into drawing up plans to re-fit Jack's house for someone who would need a motorized wheelchair while Daniel threw himself into being there for Jack when Jack needed him.

Jack re-learned to talk and he told Daniel alone how afraid he was, but then he'd grin and talk about learning how to fish from his new wheelchair even if he couldn't use his hands and Daniel let himself believe again. 

Daniel got back from a trip off-world only to find Sam waiting for him in the Gateroom with tears in her eyes. She hadn't said a word as she drove them to the hospital where Jack was back in the ICU with pneumonia.

He knew how bad it was when no one told them they had to leave.

"It's okay," he told Jack over and over. "We're going to be fine. Charlie and Teal'c and Janet and General Hammond are waiting for you."

Jack had opened his eyes once and looked at Daniel. Daniel saw the words Jack could no longer say and nodded. 

"I know," he said to Jack and pressed his forehead to Jack's to let him know he was there. "It's okay to let go. Everything is going to be okay."

And it had been. It had been hard—grief always was but Sam had been there and when nights grew too dark, he would call her and they'd cry together. Eventually the ache shrank, but Daniel was never able to bring himself to delete the last voice mail Jack had sent him on his office phone. He listened to it when the pain grew too strong and would smile even as his eyes filled with tears.

Vala had disappeared on a mission with SG-22. It had been a week after Daniel told her there was no chance of them being together in the kindest way he knew.. It wasn't that he didn't love her because he did. But he didn't love love her and it wasn't fair to her to pretend he did. Major Munoz reported that Vala had dialed up another Gate address and walked through. He thought that maybe she had built an empire of thieves but none of the SG teams ever came across her or even found someone who knew her. He hoped that no matter what, she had found someone to love her as she deserved.

Cameron had died fifteen years ago when he had a massive stroke while giving a lecture at the Academy—a shock to everyone considering that the man still was playing basketball even he was slower than he'd been years past. He'd have loved this whole lead up to tomorrow's surprise to the world and Daniel imagined Cam would have been the face the world would have wanted to see.

"Ah, Sam," he whispered as he brought her picture close. It had been taken at Cassie's daughter Jacqueline's wedding three years ago. She'd been dancing with Mike and even with her gray hair, she was still a beautiful woman. She'd died only two months later in her sleep. No reason other than her heart just stopped beating.

Sam's death had been the hardest—not because he'd loved her more than any of the others but because it meant he was alone again as he'd been alone for so much of his life before the SGC. Sure, there was Cassie and her family and he still had friends at the SGC and he taught at the Academy in the program Jack started that groomed the best and brightest for the most top secret military installation on the planet, but there was no one who had known him when he'd been at his prime. And he missed being able to reminisce without being thought an old man who was reliving his glory days. 

He began work on the book—he always thought of it with capital letters: The Book. He knew the SGC wouldn't be a secret forever and he wanted the truth told—the names remembered. He didn't want the world to think that they'd all been perfect. He wanted people to know the sacrifices men and women had made over the years to keep them safe. Daniel sighed. He could only hope that the world understood. 

He was tired and the thought of the way the world was going to change when the media was invited into the SGC and Cassie and the president opened the Stargate and explained just what it meant already exhausted him. He got up to put the pictures back on the mantel.

"My Danyel."

He turned. There she was—young and beautiful. He walked towards her as she opened her arms to him. They embraced and he buried his face in her hair. She smelled of sun and sand and Abydos and he was taken back all those years when he was young and Sha're took his breath away by her courage.

"Sha're," he murmured and pressed a kiss to her lips. She was solid in his arms and he wondered how that could be as he released her.

"My husband. You will come with me," Sha're told him in that way he'd always jumped to obey. She held out her hand and he took it. Looked down and saw his fingers entwined with hers—no longer gnarled with arthritis but straight and unblemished.

"Sha're?" He looked from her and then back and saw an old man—him--lying on the floor, broken picture frames around him. 

"I'm dead?" he asked her more in disbelief than fear. 

"You are where you are meant to be," Sha're told him. She brushed her fingers over his face when he felt tears spring to his eyes.

"Cassie," he said. He didn't want her to feel the pain.

" Ah, that is my Danyel—thinking of another. Her mother is with her," she said. "She will help Cassie understand why you had to go."

"Come with me, my love," she said. 

And they were standing before the Gateroom doors even as SGC personnel walked around them. 

"This is where I must leave you, Danyel," Sha're said. She rested her hand on his cheek and he turned his head to kiss her palm. 

"Leave me? But I thought..."

"I was only meant be a part of you for a time. It was what Fate decreed. We were always meant to walk two different paths," Sha're said. She placed her hand on his chest—over his heart. "I will always be a part of you. But you needed another family more than you ever needed me alone."

"You are safe?" Daniel asked her. "You are happy?"

Sha're smiled. "Yes. Always remember the love we shared with happiness not sorrow." 

Between one blink and the next she was gone and only the faint scent of her remained.

The doors opened and he entered the Gateroom where Jack, Sam, and Teal'c stood dressed in BDUs, ready for a mission.

As one they turned to him. Sam broke into a brilliant smile and even Teal'c smiled as much as Teal'c did. Jack's grin was the widest of all.

"Welcome home, Daniel," Jack said.

Daniel couldn't help it. He ran to them, was caught up in their hugs and head pats. 

"We are glad you have finally joined us, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said.

"I'm so glad you're here," Sam said. "I need someone willling to listen to my theories."

Daniel laughed—giddy and joyous. He looked up at the control room and saw Walter Harriman at the controls, General Hammond behind him. Cam was beside him and gave a little wave along with cheeky grin. Janet was in the chair next to Walter and she gave a little okay sign and nod.

"You ready?" Jack asked him and tugged at the backpack Daniel didn't realize was there. "What do you have in there? Your whole library?"

"Maybe I do," he said. He wasn't sure yet. 

The Gate began to spin and he stood there in awe, looking at it. 

"Where are we going?" Daniel asked.

"Not sure," Jack said. "Exciting isn't it?"

There was a kawoosh and the Gate settled into its puddle of blue.

"Come on," Daniel said, suddenly unable to repress the joy of the start of a new adventure. He reached out, took Jack's hand in his. Sam grabbed his other and he saw Teal'c take her free hand. "Let's go."

They took a collective deep breath and SG-1went through the Gate together.

**Author's Note:**

> I've deliberately left the ending ambiguous. My personal belief is that they continue their adventures--going through the Gate, coming back to the SGC after each mission. But I realize it could be interpreted that they go through together and don't come back.
> 
> Believe what you want and whatever makes you happy. Because it's meant to be a happy ending even if everyone we've known and loved has died.


End file.
